Book review

Category archives for Book review

Last week, I noted that the Free-Ride offspring are off kicking it with The Grandparents Who Lurk But Seldom Comment, and that, to ensure that you would not have to endure a Friday without a Sprog Blog, I gave each of the sprogs a book to read during their visit with their grandparents and asked…

The Free-Ride offspring are currently summering (for a couple weeks, anyway) with The Grandparents Who Lurk But Seldom Comment. Practically, this means the conversations between Free-Ride offspring and parents over the past week have been brief and focused on how awesome day camp is. I have, however, taken steps to ensure that while I am…

Eugenie Samuel Reich is a reporter whose work in the Boston Globe, Nature, and New Scientist will be well-known to those with an interest in scientific conduct (and misconduct). In Plastic Fantastic: How the Biggest Fraud in Physics Shook the Scientific World, she turns her skills as an investigative reporter to writing a book-length exploration…

Plastic Fantastic: How the Biggest Fraud in Physics Shook the Scientific World by Eugenie Samuel Reich New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2009 The scientific enterprise is built on trust and accountability. Scientists are accountable both to the world they are trying to describe and to their fellow scientists, with whom they are working to build a…

As promised, in this post I consider the treatment of the science-religion culture wars in Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. If you’re just tuning in, you may want to pause to read my review of the book, or to peruse my thoughts on issues the book…

In the post where I reviewed it, I promised I’d have more to say about Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future. As it turns out, I have a lot more to say — so much that I’m breaking it up into three posts so I can keep my trains of thought from colliding.…

Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future. by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum Basic Books 2009 In this book, Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum set out to alert us to a problem, and they gesture in the direction of a solution to that problem. Despite the subtitle of the book, their target is not…

The Free-Ride offspring are almost at the end of another school year, so we thought this would be a good time for them to think about some summer reading recommendations. Each of them chose two favorite books that have something to do with science. Below, they offer their kid-to-kid reviews.

The Urban Homestead: Your guide to self-sufficient living in the heart of the city. by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen Port Townsend, WA: Process Media 2008 In honor of Earth Day, here’s a brief review of a fascinating book about making your lifestyle more sustainable. While some friends of the blog jokingly refer to this…

Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer among the American Romantics by Renée Bergland Boston: Beacon Press 2008 What is it like to be a woman scientist? In a society where being a woman is somehow a distinct experience from being an ordinary human being, the answer to this question can be complicated.…